Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins

18th Annual Fellow Research Day

Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Curing Cancer with fat

In Dr Q's lab, we are deriving Mesenchymal Stem cells (MSC) from patient's fat. By genetically modifying those cells, we can make them bioluminescent and thus observe their location when injected in an animal. In the following figure, we show that MSC only invade the brain when mice have a brain tumor. This exciting result suggests that we could use MSC to locally deliver drug therapy in brain cancer patients. We are currently engineering MSC that deliver such anti-neoplastic drugs.

outcomes lab

How Can We Extend Your Life?

The Neuro-Oncology Outcomes Lab seeks to identify treatment procedures used both before and after surgery that improve patient care, quality of life, and mortality rates for patients with brain tumors. While the choice of treatment has the greatest affect on your life, be it surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy, it’s the little things that count when comes to better living; thriving vs. surviving.

basic research

Pituitary Tumors Just Might Have Their Own Cure.

Our Research Lab is looking to see if populations of stem cells already found in the normal pituitary gland also exist in pituitary tumors. Though they cause the growth of the tumor, learning more about them could pinpoint a step in the cell cycle that, if stopped, would halt their growth. Studying these cells could also lead to future medicine that would regenerate parts of the pituitary gland destroyed by the tumor.